Benjamin Balthaser

💯

i miss the time when most liberals could identify the policies suggested in the great barrington declaration as evil, eugenic, and unsupported by science!

I mean please tell us more about herd immunity www.luriechildrens.org/en/news-stor...

I just rewatched raiders of the lost ark: my new theory is that it’s about a liberal new deal state forestalling the messianic power of fascism and the occult through the force of weberian administrative rationality. A liberal fantasy tbs but not a bad description of the new deal itself

That a good line

lol on the nose, so to speak

New, highly transmissible COVID-19 strain fueling wave of infections across US By Tracy Swartz Published Oct. 1, 2025, 8:21 p.m. ET

Five years ago today, we authored the Great Barrington Declaration, arguing for focused protection instead of lockdowns. A wholehearted thank you to the almost one million co-signers. We were proven right.

The Great Barrington Dec. aka the “let covid rip” policy, legitimated the death of over a million Americans, is disabling of tens of millions more, & failed to achieve its own instrumental goal, ending the pandemic. It did succeed hwvr in gutting public health & eroding public trust in science

I would assume the GOP would get pulverized in the mid terms…if there are mid terms and anyone will be able to vote in them ….

🤣

Free Greta Thunberg and the rest of the illegally detained flotilla activists.

Since I live in Hyde Park at first I thought the helicopters flying all last night were for the UofC trauma center (which has a helipad) - a friend just confirmed - they are ICE Blackhawk army helicopters deployed to terrorize the city.

At Berkeley, a Protest at a Dean’s Home Tests the Limits of Free Speech (Published 2024)

www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/u...

This is the real price of silencing movements for justice on the left that one may disagree w: it doesn’t make one necessarily a hypocrite; it just in the end makes us all more alone and more vulnerable 3/3

Rather, many prominent liberals’ refusal to stand w students fighting for justice Palestine - was not only immoral - it eroded the solidarity we need now, desperately, to fight off MAGA 2/3

On Wednesday, the Trump administration sent letters to nine major universities proposing a “compact.” As The Times reports, the agreement would, among other things, require these universities to freeze tuition rates for five years, limit the enrollment of foreign students and be bound to specific definitions of gender. It would also require them to prohibit anything that would “punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” In exchange, these universities would receive “multiple positive benefits,” including “substantial and meaningful federal grants.” The schools were warned that they were free to go a different route if any of them “elects to forgo federal benefits.” A senior White House adviser indicated that the administration wants to extend this compact to all institutions of higher education. This is extortion, plain and simple.

Written by same Professor Chemerinsky who refused to allow a pro-Palestine student to speak in a college event at his home.

It’s not that I want to play “gotcha” - that Chemerinsky was wrong about something else doesn’t mean his warnings about Trump shouldn’t be taken seriously…. 1/3

Thank you Maya! Glad you could make the talk. Gut yontiff and for a militant liberatory new year

I can’t tell if this makes me feel old, or young, but to a new year w an old song - thinking about the #freedomflotilla

www.instagram.com/reel/DPRUlJK...

true story

“Break the Blockade and End the Siege”: Nelson Mandela’s Grandson Speaks from Gaza Aid Flotilla As the Israeli blockade of Gaza continues, a nearly 50-boat flotilla carrying humanitarian aid is currently some 150 nautical miles from Gaza. The grandson of Nelson Mandela, Nkosi Zwelivelile “Mandla...

www.democracynow.org/2025/9/30/su...

Well, we, so far as the delegation from South Africa, draw our lessons from our previous experiences. Many of South Africans that have been to the Occupied Territories in the West Bank, including those that have gone to Gaza, have come back with one conclusion, that the Palestinians are experiencing a far worse form of apartheid than we ever experienced. And the last two years have been an indication of what truly is being experienced in Gaza, in particular. The genocide and ethnic cleansing that we have witnessed has been horrific and a shock to the entire global community.

You didn’t hear it from me, you heard it from Nelson Mandela’s grandson

“Many of South Africans that have been to the Occupied Territories in the West Bank….have come back with one conclusion, that the Palestinians are experiencing a far worse form of apartheid”

TY Sarah. Hope it meets yr expectations ❤️

A comrade recently posted that Mamdani *only receives pushback for his anti-Zionism, as his welfare policies are rather tame. While not entirely wrong, as Amy Goodman pts here, it’s not a single policy - but their their collective articulation (along w anti-Zionism) - that makes Mamdani a socialist

Look I have my criticisms of Big Boy but gd it’s important that he’s saying this

I don’t like to quote LBJ, but he had a blunt, visceral grasp of US politics: we are taking (I paraphrase) the n-word out of American life w the Civil Rights Act. After listening Ezra Klein on the NYer this wkend, it occurred to me that his proposal amounts to bringing it back, if it wins elections.

Any campaign, politician or commentary that does not recognize BDS is now political commonsense among Americans is either in a bubble or more likely, lying

“A majority of American voters now oppose sending additional economic and military aid to Israel, a stunning reversal in opinion.”

‼️

NWestern students blocked from enrollment after refusing to watch controversial antisemitism training (Guardian)

Northwestern banned over 300 students for refusing to watch an extremist indoctrination video that demonizes anti-Zionist Jews, ie most Jews I know, as Nazis and Klansmen.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

You will forgive me if I sometimes just have no words for this moment in American life